1) A disgusting and puerile corruption of the legislative process. Thank you Colbert, the Comedy Channel, and the Democratic Party (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Comedy Channel) for your efforts to uplift the cultural milieu of our heretofore tawdry government.

2) Colbert has been jealous of Jon Stewert's bottom line for years. Being a witness before a Congressional committee adds product recognition at taxpayer's expense.

3) A "Punch 'n Judy" show aimed to distract the MSM from Christopher Coates testimony before the Civil Rights Commission.

1) A disgusting and puerile corruption of the legislative process. Thank you Colbert, the Comedy Channel, and the Democratic Party (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Comedy Channel) for your efforts to uplift the cultural milieu of our heretofore tawdry government.

2) Colbert has been jealous of Jon Stewert's bottom line for years. Being a witness before a Congressional committee adds product recognition at taxpayer's expense.

3) A "Punch 'n Judy" show aimed to distract the MSM from Christopher Coates testimony before the Civil Rights Commission.

I have occasionally watched these sort of proceedings on C-span. And, it's not too unusual to see witnesses that are smarter and more informed than the Congress folks who make stupid statements.

But, the witnesses are not (usually) willing or politically wise to rip apart and harshly mock the Congress folks. It looks like this Hetero sapien (as he identifies himself in the intro graphics to his show) didn't feel the pressure to hold back.

I'd like to see more of this from the serious witnesses. Imagine if these Congress folks went in to these things knowing that their stupidity could result in an extreme verbal thrashing. BTW, this is a bipartisan issue, e.g. Johnson and Guam tipping over.

Here Stewart goes down a different path than Colbert chose, but he still gets to one of those 'the emperor has no cloths' revelations.

Stewart is earnest, when he's expected to be the joker. But, in the end he punches through the phoniness, just like Colbert did by being a clown in a forum that is supposedly deliberate and serious--contrary to the evidence regularly disseminated by Brian Lamb.

Even the Roman senate when Caligula was emperor was classier than this bunch of clowns--at least caligula made his horse a senator--here we only have a horses ass. Of course this is the house of reps who have even less class than senators

What a sorry spectacle--what a bunch of losers--what a waste of tax payer money. Hang all the bastards. Including Colbert. Just to decorate the gibbet.

I worked @ USP Leavenworth. There is some serious shit packing done in maximum security prisons. There are many euphemisms, but "packing shit" was the original. "Fudge packing" was created for women? named "Dust Bunny Queen" to feel more comfortable w/ this quite scatalogical enterprise.

That skank Zoe Lofgren from California saw that every imaginable demographic was fleeing her Party, so she made a grab for the lowest hanging fruit. What better way to reach the stoners and poli-sci posers than by giving Colbert a Congressional set for his comedy routine?And these idiots will spend weeks wondering why the country spit them out like a bad oyster on Nov. 2nd.

If Gen. McChrystal testified against illegal immigration, everyone would cry foul: He knows nothing about the subject and he would be using the good will he earned in one arena to win his case in another. It would be cheap and manipulative. So is Colbert's testimony, and the more polished his performance, the more manipulative it is.

Doesn't it suck when someone with actual talent and a real sense of humor shows all you Lush Rimbaugh fans how it's really done?

This will be the beginning of a long era of Republican fumigating. All you wet blankets should try running yourselves through a sprinkler. Too much pressure through a garden hose and no one to direct it just leaves a writhing spectacle of wetness.

I'll give him props because that was a pretty tough crowd and he didnt' start fidgeting thinking he had lost the audience. And in truth a few of the jokes I heard (I only had it on for a few minutes) were cute.But totally innapropriate for a congressional committee. Even worse, considering that it cost upwards of a hundred grand for what was all intents and purposes a comedy show. Why not, in the interest of saving money, have congressional comiittees held at Chuckles. They could get in their eating and drinking while they're at i.

I've heard that the next congressional committee will have Maroon 5 singing about health care (plus their hits). It'll be a blast. Then they're going to get Cirque Du Soleil to perform about the very important issue of funding for aids research. Everyone should get tickets for that. It's going to be a blast.

It was a duplication due to a glitch in Blogger, as all the other commenters have complained about. But feel free to use material wherever you can find it, seeing as how poor your delivery, timing and talent is.

:-)

(I inserted a smiley face to be like Revenant).

Really. An impression of a Republican is akin to Caligula? That says a lot more about your side than you know.

Really, Fen. You do need some new material. I know that's a difficult task for someone as uncreative and dull as yourself, but reach back. Reach deep. Reach into that part of yourself where you imagine yourself being fondled as people you only know through the internets (pseudonymously) watch teevee with you.

The biggest trump card Ritmo and all progressives have is classy envy and their America-hate. They've successfully managed to inculcate the America-hate in schools the last 20 years. I find it fascinating that Ritmo defends Meso-American cultures despite all their evils and depravity. He basically mourns for the fact that they weren't strong enough to fend off the Spanish. Somehow Spain being stronger is evil, whatever.

More ideas that exist only in your imagination. Just like your constant fantasies of us watching television together.

;-)

Fen, even though you're obviously a flaming homosexual, did you ever watch Tango and Cash? I heard that was a good movie. It's not as trendy as West Wing or Sex in the City (which is your favorite) were, but you might like it.

"You won't find it insulting once you finally come out of the closet, ReactionaryTard."

I'm out of the "closet" and I find it insulting, but not surprising. Your kind has feigned sympathy and concern for us queers for quite a while, in order to get us to vote for your candidates. You've managed to pull the same con on black Americans for a hell of a long time as well. But let one of us stray out of line, and all the disdain, insult and hatred that's quite alive underneath that supposedly caring dermis comes seeping out the pores.

Your feigned outrage is almost as intriguing as the kind that FOX Noise types muster every day for different reasons, Palladian.

Fen's sexual orientation is nothing I take umbrage at, as you obviously know when you're thinking more clearly. Nor are his fantasies. But when he wants to continue making me the object of them in public, as a way to make a stupid point about how many Latin phrases I know, why should I have a problem outing him? It's his politics, not mine, that make his urges unacceptable to him. I make no apology for that and neither should you.

But I must protest! "Fulminating" sounded too scripted, removed and devoid of images of self-combustion!

Seriously, these Irrelephants need to be hosed down. They need to just chill. Ever since the first actor-president, they've been putting their crap over on the country as if replacing any appeal to reality with the right myth and narrative is all that matters. Enough.

And just look at what this got us into. Not just with the financial meltdown (that they fantasize to no end about finding the right gimmick to ameliorate). Palladian bitches about civility and decency with the rest while blaming tolerant people for pointing out the inability of intolerant people to get their party to tolerate them.

If that isn't the height of ridiculousness, who knows what is? Only Julius comes close to pointing out why comedians like Colbert can be the only antidote to all this nonsense. Maybe someone else will get you to accept a line between reality and fantasy. But in the meantime, he's doing a fine job of it.

And for the record, I never said anything rude to Palladian when he claimed that any women in my life were secretly attracted to other men who, in turn, were secretly attracted to him.

I just thought it was funny. As is Fen's insistence that he has personal knowledge of any of the personal or intimate details of my life. The only difference is, Palladian meant to be funny.

But of course, you will accuse me of being responsible for, you know, pointing that out. The ultimate sin among the reactionaries is making a point that they were too stupid to figure out. They call that "uncivil".

I left a comment earlier today, but either Althouse deleted it because it made her look bad, it was moderated and she didn't approve it because it made her look bad, or it was innocently caught in a filter.

I've gotten almost no help with my attempts to discredit him, and no one else (except perhaps vDare, Sailer, or Digger; I haven't checked) has even tried. Instead, they offer Hannity-style coverage. And, that doesn't work.

If you oppose illegal immigration, there are a lot of people who you might think are on your side, but aren't. They're just putting on a show and not willing or able to do things that are effective.

Ritmo:In the olden days [I love that saying], we'd be having this conservation in a bar and everyone would be drunk and by now you'd be on the bar floor bleeding after one of us decided it was time to kick the shit out of you.

I've gotten almost no help with my attempts to discredit him, and no one else (except perhaps vDare, Sailer, or Digger; I haven't checked) has even tried. Instead, they offer Hannity-style coverage. And, that doesn't work.

If you oppose illegal immigration, there are a lot of people who you might think are on your side, but aren't. They're just putting on a show and not willing or able to do things that are effective.

AJ, I had a very long comment in work about how RB has long ceased to treat us as anything but a captive audience of targets, a sponge for his pain, but you just said it so much better than I.

My chief point was that his discourse is only suited for the Internet and, in a f2f environment, wouldn't work out so well.

Not so much the idea of being scared and/or beaten, I wasn't going there. Though that would probably happen too.

But IRL, almost any human in a real life crowd of such as this blog audience, let alone one so wonderful as Ritmo, would surely read his audience and realize that he was boring, unimpressing, not fooling, antagonizing, and in every way losing his audience. And of course he couldn't go on at such length.

Ritmo has had talented people say nice things to or about him at one time or another and consequently thinks himself bulletproof. He ain't. He doesn't even know, or won't admit, that the word he was fumbling for was "fuming!"

Ritmo floated this one out there: "I don't know what I ever claimed to "genuinely" be, but I do know that you're genuinely fixated by the idea of watching teevee with me.

Which makes you a closeted homosexual."

Non sequitur of the month right there.

Chuckle Meter reading: 9.

"But I am intrigued to know what you have against ejaculation. That seems to take this to a whole new level."

What's odd about this is that you feel my proper usage of a word means I have something against it. You've always had problems with the language, but you're stepping on your dick more than usual tonight.

"And with so little you reveal vast quantities of what you do not know."

Whoa dude, you like, sooooo deep!

"Good bye, G-Mayfly. Fly away, to the land of the little mayflies."

Ritty, that taunt may scare off the competition for dates down at the local playground, but someone of your Laurentian depth should be capable of something more effective.

Just accept that "IRL" (as you're so fond of saying), not as many people think the way you do as you would like to think, Nichevo - (Really. Violence for saying the wrong thing. I guess that's the reactionary's idea of free speech. Oh well). Also, accept that the internet is one of, if not the most dominant medium for exchanging ideas nowadays.

If you can't hack that, why not just go back to those "IRL" locales where you can demand respect for what you can't articulate, and threaten to beat people up for not being sufficiently deferential to you for not being able to defend what you say with words.

And by the way, you're not as nice a guy as you think, either, Nichevo. A nice person wouldn't be as easily threatened as you are by mere ideas with which you happen to be incapable of competing against.

(And discussing this blog at work? Lame. Some hobbies are really best kept to oneself, Nichevo).

Exactly, Fen. RB, this is just such a case of what I mean: you persist in your whimsy of ad homs in that jejune way of yours, and think you are getting over. (Oh, huhuh, I called him a kike, that isn't an insult if he's Jewish because then he really is one, uuhuhuh, has he got problem with that, and if he isn't Jewish then it doesn't apply to him, huh-uhuh. PS, I am better than you, kthxbai. PPS, I am Cornholio!)

You think that would work to get you out of trouble at the principal's office at elementary school? Do you? Really?

(Oh, huhuh, I called him a kike, that isn't an insult if he's Jewish because then he really is one, uuhuhuh, has he got problem with that, and if he isn't Jewish then it doesn't apply to him, huh-uhuh. PS, I am better than you, kthxbai. PPS, I am Cornholio!)

But I never used an epithet in referring to Fen's homosexuality, Nichevo. I passed no judgment on it. The word "homosexual" is only an epithet if you think there is something wrong with being a homosexual.

So, what is it, in your mind, that makes Fen's homosexuality wrong? (I mean, other than the fact that he should be more circumspect with the object of his fantasies.)

I've watched the video again. Here's the point: Republicans are too embarrassed by "their" comedian-cheerleader (Rush Limbaugh) in public to bring him before Congress. Ergo, what dirty bastards the Democrats are for allowing Colbert to humorously address a session of the chamber!!!

Get a fucking grip. All of you. And no, I don't mean it in the way that G-Unit is thinking.

I reject your vapid, non sequitur aspersions of non-niceness, and I miss your meaning about work entirely, but all that to one side. I have not advocated violence to shut you up, I have differentiated myself from those who have.

My point was not that I or someone else would inevitably slap you silly or put a bullet through your brain for daring to say the things you do. Besides, maybe you are a real tough guy and can impose your will on people if you choose.

My point was that in real life, among a group of people in a room or in a field, if you had the attention of and were addressing the one or three or ten or fifty of us Althousians who are currently immured in this thread, you would find ample nonverbal cues that you were losing that attention.

If you like to address the waves like Demosthenes, a fitter and more grateful audience than you have had hitherto, then knock yourself out. Just wondering why, like a fool.

I consider it a compliment to be considered ignorable by such an un-influential blog. So thank you! ;-)

But really, dude. You're not such a bad or uncivilized guy once you get someone to level with you in the manner you seek. I suppose I should thank the guy who reminds me of manners for not wishing death or defamation (as others here have done) on me. Even if he thinks that alone isn't reason enough to find more to agree with me on than with them.

1) I doubt Fen is gay (NTTWW, at least for the sake of argument, lol); you are baiting him, at a level about as witty as saying that in college, your opponent was a noted thespian.

3) You are gay-baiting him because you think either it will sting Fen personally, or that the argle-bargle over this imputation inevitably makes Fen and anyone else who "dabbles into it" look bad - but not you somehow.

Your illusion is that since you say "homosexual" or "gay" instead of "faggot" or "queer," you are not being rude. (The more so as in the modern era, the pomo homo critique is "owning" it e.g. caling oneself "queer" to disarm the word as Quentin Tarantino, Chris Rock et al purportedly attempted to do with "nigger.")

But anyway, "homosexual" is the dictionary word and a good balance of latent vs manifest offensiveness. You dodge my first trap by saying Ah, a more accurate simile is that I did not call you kike, I called you Jew. Surely you are proud to be a Jew?

The insult though is connoted at more levels than one. In your ambit this passes for "deep."

See...if you call me, as Hillary Clinton was said to do to some fellow someplace, a "Fucking Jew Bastard:"

"Jew" is true enough, though some might always quibble;

"Bastard" is false;

And "Fucking" is best expressed as a probability cloud, true or false at any given moment.

But, however, is not "Fucking Jew Bastard" an insult? is it meant as an insult? of course it is. And truth or falsehood has nothing to do with it.

Clinically, if I were illegitimate, it would always be at least 2/3 true, but unless my lineage were at specific issue as in deciding the line of succession to a throne, it would be irrelevant in almost any conversation. Added thus gratuitously or not, would it be any the less a verbal blow?

And if I were Christian, or Muslim, or other or none, what combinations...a Muslim bastard with no sex life...a round-heeled atheist from a good home...a animist of uncertain parentage who is a virgin...

IRL, it would be clearer because there would be clues - tone, posture, facial expression, context. Calling your friend "you old bastard" because he beat you at chess and you owe him a pony ride for his youngest daughter is a little different from saying that to the Wal-Mart greeter who stubs your toe.

Speaking of woolgathering...let's say I call you a commie all the time. Commie Ritmo, Ritmo the commie who is always trying to share the wealth and liquidate dissent. Commie Ritmo has inappropriate fantasies about my wallet and my Constitutional rights.

1) Is being a communist a bad thing? RB, want to state a position on that? Short and clear would be good.

2) Is Ritmo a communist? Well, RB?

3) is Ritmo something close enough to a formal proper communist to be loosely tagged with just "commie" or "pinko," and if so would he like to admit it?

...Now, Ritmo, you would have a fine time dancing around the questions when probably your short clear true answers would be fine. You probably don't like such questions and wouldn't like to ask or be asked them. You would find them tendentious, which is exactly what your use of "homosexual" is - much as Cedarford's constant usage of Jew this and Jewish that - though he generally doesn't descend to such epithets as "kike" or "Yid" - "Jew" this and "Jew" that is bad enough for him to get his point across.

And I doubt he would expect a Jew, "good" or "bad" according to whatever tally he keeps or doesn't keep, to fail to see it. (Or maybe the "good" Jews know what he means and don't take it personally, and the rest of them can go to hell.)

Or like in Blazing Saddles. The sheriff was black, and what was the problem? But obviously most people in the film had a problem one way or the other.

TW: can I resse my case or do you wish to be schooled some more? Warning, I'm getting sleepy, bored, and my typing is not likely to improve, so sorry.

TW 2: perplo. i was perplo to ind I had exceeded 4096 characters. Oops!

And if I were Christian, or Muslim, or other or none, what combinations...a Muslim bastard with no sex life...a round-heeled atheist from a good home...a animist of uncertain parentage who is a virgin...

IRL, it would be clearer because there would be clues - tone, posture, facial expression, context. Calling your friend "you old bastard" because he beat you at chess and you owe him a pony ride for his youngest daughter is a little different from saying that to the Wal-Mart greeter who stubs your toe.

Speaking of woolgathering...let's say I call you a commie all the time. Commie Ritmo, Ritmo the commie who is always trying to share the wealth and liquidate dissent. Commie Ritmo has inappropriate fantasies about my wallet and my Constitutional rights.

1) Is being a communist a bad thing? RB, want to state a position on that? Short and clear would be good.

2) Is Ritmo a communist? Well, RB?

3) is Ritmo something close enough to a formal proper communist to be loosely tagged with just "commie" or "pinko," and if so would he like to admit it?

...Now, Ritmo, you would have a fine time dancing around the questions when probably your short clear true answers would be fine. You probably don't like such questions and wouldn't like to ask or be asked them. You would find them tendentious, which is exactly what your use of "homosexual" is - much as Cedarford's constant usage of Jew this and Jewish that - though he generally doesn't descend to such epithets as "kike" or "Yid" - "Jew" this and "Jew" that is bad enough for him to get his point across.

And I doubt he would expect a Jew, "good" or "bad" according to whatever tally he keeps or doesn't keep, to fail to see it. (Or maybe the "good" Jews know what he means and don't take it personally, and the rest of them can go to hell.)

Or like in Blazing Saddles. The sheriff was black, and what was the problem? But obviously most people in the film had a problem one way or the other.

TW: can I resse my case or do you wish to be schooled some more? Warning, I'm getting sleepy, bored, and my typing is not likely to improve, so sorry.

TW3: prograil. Well I ain't anti-.

TW4: resseem. It resseems to me I've been entering this comment a long time.

Eh? Althouse an un-influential blog? The key to wit is an element of truth.

As for the rest, now a bathic appeal as underdog? Nobody here is ACTUALLY going to hit you. (If anyone does I want video please)

You have been unpleasant to me personally in the past, gratuitously and beyond apparent utility, and I have no reason to have any sympathy for you. And whether a beating would be fair comeuppance in your case is hard to know. I just doubt that karmic justice will find you so readily.

Ain't no hangman gonna,He ain't gonna put a rope around you

As to whether your being an "elp, elp, I'm being oppressed" minority here adds credence to your views which I should consider outside of my instinctive distaste for you...

well, I don't see it, but you're welcome to expand on that theory here.

In any case, as long as I can have a conversation at some level of decency, I am satisfied. I am even willing to entertain your humors at the moment, being bored. You wish to contend the Colbert appearance was a net good, or at least an appreciable good? We can start there.

--------I've watched the video again. Here's the point: Republicans are too embarrassed by "their" comedian-cheerleader (Rush Limbaugh) in public to bring him before Congress. Ergo, what dirty bastards the Democrats are for allowing Colbert to humorously address a session of the chamber!!!-------

Frankly I'd prefer not to dignify the spectacle by watching it, which I guess is old-maidish...from news accounts, Colbert was probably more self-aware than many in attendance at the hearings. With a little praeteritio even he could have added to the day.

And it would probably count as Conyers' finest hour, or at least the one part where he got up on his hind legs and wondered what was going on?

But no, I don't think mugging for the cameras in a pastiche of his television act can possibly be the right thing to do. We could argue effective but effective or no, RB, isn't it just a little bit filthy?

But no, I don't think mugging for the cameras in a pastiche of his television act can possibly be the right thing to do. We could argue effective but effective or no, RB, isn't it just a little bit filthy?

Why on earth should Democrats care about whether Colbert's (likely effective) use of humor comes at the expense of offending Republicans when Republicans never gave a damn about how many millions of people Lush Rimbaugh has offended over the dozens of years they've spent listening to him? Since they've happened to anoint him a de facto co-chair of their political faction (a distinction to be shared with Sarah Palin) you might think they'd be even less circumspect about trotting his presence out in an official, public forum. But they won't. And for good reason.

The difference between Colbert and Limbaugh, or between Colbert and Palin, is that Colbert can actually engage people who disagree with him in a public or neutral or critical forum, whereas the leaders of your party are too much a bunch of pussies to ever do that.

Ritty added 2+2 and came up with 'cake': "Why on earth should Democrats care about whether Colbert's (likely effective) use of humor comes at the expense of offending Republicans when Republicans never gave a damn about how many millions of people Lush Rimbaugh has offended over the dozens of years they've spent listening to him?"

Because one's ongressional testimony and the other is some guy's radio show.

How in hell you've convinced some here that you're smart is a fucking mystery.

I don't refer to Fen's homosexuality because I view it as some sort of gratuitous insult, the way C-Fud uses the word "Jew". I do it because he seems fixated with me to the point where he believes he has some sort of special, privileged access to the details of my personal life.

If he is embarrassed about his man crush, that is his problem. He should really get over it.

You guys will not win this one, Nichevo. Argument by assertion is as big a problem of this blog as is knowing when to lay off. If Fen is not proud of what his obsession about my personal life says about him, then the solution is simple: He can stop obsessively pretending that he knows a thing about it. Unless his fantasies make that impossible, of course.

And you cannot fixate his way out of it, either.

BTW, The Blazing Saddles reference reflects more poorly on the audience here than on me.

Because one's ongressional testimony and the other is some guy's radio show.

before reading the rest of the comment and realizing that was the point entirely.

But I'll restate it for the illiterate:

Limbaugh wouldn't be called before Congress (or "ongress", for that matter) because the Republicans are rightly more embarrassed by their dirty laundry in public than the Democrats are of an actual comedian who sympathizes with them, Colbert.

Ritty tried: "Argument by assertion is as big a problem of this blog as is knowing when to lay off."

Coming from far and away the biggest offender, this is fucking rich. Seriously, this accusation is coming from the guy who carpet bombs the threads he oozes into with literally thousands of words backed by nothing more than his fevered imagination.

Ritty bloviated: "before reading the rest of the comment and realizing that was the point entirely."

Here we go with the projection again.

Slow down and read this time: you apparently missed my point - Republicans realize that calling entertainers to testify in character before congress is not only a poor political move, but a waste of taxpayers dollars.

I figure it'll only take you about 3 readings to grasp the point. (I didn't commit the error of a cryptic typo like "ongressional" to throw you off this time.)

Ready...go.

(But hey, I'll keep going with your Limbaugh red herring as long as you want...until college football starts, then you're on your own)

The Colbert abortion is just the latest example of the Left's validation-by-celebrity tack. "Ooooh, a cable network comedian said it, so it must be true! He's soooo edgy!!!"

Being stupid as rocks, Dem voters don't realize that getting their views from strung out starlets and washed up musical acts reveals them for the pea-brains they really are.After Nov. 2nd the collective Congressional I.Q. is going to spike, that's for sure.

Meanwhile, the DoJ Civil/Voting Rights apparatus has been exposed as nothing but a tool to exact racial vengeance. The eventual Congressional hearings promise to be fascinating, but ugly. So maybe a little levity this weekend isn't the worst thing.

Republicans realize that calling entertainers to testify in character before congress is not only a poor political move, but a waste of taxpayers dollars.

For your side, it obviously is.

And that is because Republican entertainers are less funny and cannot attract as wide an audience as those who appeal beyond the right-wing base.

I think this has something to do with non-right wing entertainers being more creative, less wedded to the emotion of anger and more interested in the state of the human condition generally. But I'm obviously wasting my breath. You still seem incapable of getting past the idea that right-wing entertainers are less popular overall, let alone why.

But keep up the envy the right has for Hollywood and the entertainment industry. As if that doesn't say everything.

Ritty just kept going: "But I'm obviously wasting my breath. You still seem incapable of getting past the idea that right-wing entertainers are less popular in general, let alone why."

We're both wasting our breath. I'm not arging about the effectiveness of partisan entertainers, you are. I'm pointing out how having comedians giving congressional testimony in character is wildly inappropriate on a number of levels. Can you wrap your tiny little head around that? Is this just too hard for you?

But keep bringing up Rush Limbaugh as if he's related to this story in the slightest degree other than your obvious fixation on him.

This is another of those rhetorical dodges I would remember the name of if we'd had Latin in grade school. In effect I said: it may or may not be effective but it is filthy amirite? To which you said: Who cares if it offends GOPers, who have bad mean poopy head Rush?

- Oh yes, tu quoque. You invoke "my" or "our" offenders (provocateurs, death squads, insult comics, party platform shibboleths) as a response to indictments of your own offenders.

But I don't believe that tu quoque is the rhetorical nuclear weapon it is sometimes made out to be. My real beef here is that with this wriggle you dodge the actual point in question.

Don't you feel like having a bath, or losing a layer of skin, after some of the guys on your side do their thing? (And maybe 'your side' is as unfair as 'my side' and the people and positions you seek to link me with...let it be shorthand for now.)

Let me me be specific: in our nonreligious system, it is nonetheless kind of a sacred thing - or used to be? - to be summoned or invited to testify before part or all of Congress. An honor, a privilege, a responsibility.

People from all walks of life, including geniuses, entertainers and bad men, may have come with the intent of helping or of tearing down the country - but they came having worn their good underwear and lucky ties and brushed their teeth and hair and practiced the use of Sir and Ma'am and Senator and such. They came and swore to tell the truth, whether they did or not, but they understood they were not there to be, or pretend to be, Joe Friday or Elmer Gantry or Loretta Lynn...

Your obtusity, real or feigned, may defeat me yet, Ritmo. Do you really mean to tell me that you don't see the point here? It's as if you had Carmen Miranda come into Congress, not to speak to the assembled on such topics as nutrition, fruit tariffs, soil erosion, LatAm death squads, broadcast decency standards or copyright - on any of which she might hypothetically have valuable remarks to make - but to leap up, encostumed, and dance and sing the Chiquita Banana song!

You really have to have your nose rubbed in it to show how making a circus of the place, makes a circus of the place?

I am not the cynosure of Legislative pretensions, no; look at your own Conyers, who bade him go his ways (with next best thing to a Sirrah!), till he was brought in on the joke. Conyers knew there was something wrong. Like, no doubt, that pitbull on the other thread - the wife lifted it out of the way so the murderers could come in all the quieter?

But I guess when Mommy says Lie down and No bite, a good loving well-trained dog heels and licks feet.

No, I will just borrow the cant phrase "whistling past the graveyard" to describe your ignoring this very apparent truth. Well, if it eases and cools you to do so...

This is entirely aside from the merits or the premise of his arguments as made. "I don't want to eat a tomato picked by a Mexican" is wrong on so many levels, is it really fair to put such words in the mouth of whoever? And when you come and say "I hate X and y and Z and PDQ, blah blah blah, I am a typical Republican, ha ha ha," you are quite clearly making the imputation that Republicans hate X, Y, , and PDQ.

Why doesn't he say, I am a conservative, I love commies and drugs and child molesting? It would be worse, more damaging, than what he said at the hearing. Probably funnier, too, and get better ratings. Why? Because it would be less effective as a political tactic.

Colbert, on the margin, would clearly prefer to gain one more net Democratic vote rather than one more laugh from his audience. As such, he is a sellout of his art.

He and Stewart duck behind "hey I'm just a dumb comic" when called on any flagrant foul of fact, but certainly don't seem to mind being taken as authorities, i.e., they don't mind that people aren't in on the joke.

Maybe someone said it best earlier: Why not have the guy from Borat? (Maybe he can sit on someone's face and tell them that he loves them? Pelosi would probably love it, like a mud pack.)

And speaking of Tu quoque...imagine this happening under the Bush admin or a future Palin, Romney, Christie, whoever conservative admin...

I think well-chosen words would fairly flow from Ritmo. He wouldn't have any trouble comprehending the horrid travesty.

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O tempora! O mores! Caesar's horse! The august halls, the domains of Clay and Webster, sullied as never before by a superficially intelligent (i.e. verbally fluent) partisan media figure with no policy qualifications WHATSOEVER!

(He is undoubtedly talking poo, and need not be regarded whether he makes sense or not. If necessary he will be found to be an icky flawed human, heh, IYKWIM, AITYD, heh.)

Just doing a cheap piece of political theater, always making the other fellows out to be apes. Opining on subjects best left to his betters, who are legion.

Pish tosh! It is to laugh, ha, ha. What next, a pie in the face?

Plus of course he's wrong, as if it were even necessary to say so. I trust I don't have to explain why?

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I think that would be a good lead-in for RB. You may have it as a draft, Ritmo, but add some mistakes so they'll know it's not mine :>

Given the way others knock me down for verbosity, I should begrudgingly offer my respect to Nichevo for at least attempting to fully explicate his case.

But to someone not wedded to the political right, it (what they are saying) comes down to this: Purity (or gravitas, or a sense of what is sacrosanct) matters. And it matters especially in the halls of congress.

I think this is a bit in error. The right is entitled to feel that purity matters. But then, why are they going on about how important it is to listen to the arithmetically inept blather coming from the uneducable rabble known as the "Tea Partiers"? I understand you have a thing against elitism. But then, why go on against Carmen Miranda, as if requiring someone to wear the right costume isn't an elitist request in itself?

Colbert's point is simple. The political process is a joke. Slapping a veneer of gravitas onto something that isn't worth taking seriously is a waste of time.

When the congresscritters come around to making mathematic sense and seriously considering the long-term problems this country faces, and discussing the problems in this country and its culture (which never takes anything seriously, anyway) with candor, then maybe there won't be a demand for someone like the character of Colbert.

Until then, you can take your gravitas and shove it!

(Of course, I mean that last point rhetorically. Only to make a point. I congratulate Nichevo for at least attempting a serious criticism of my comments and empathize with his understanding that serious questions and serious answers sometimes require a degree of thought. Which is reflected in a longer response).

One consequence of saturation blogging is that one cannot always keep it up. Hence your unanswered remarks. Please forgive any implied discourtesy and rest assured i will get back to as much of this old stuff i can find as and where found.

At the margin, it is always the one last thing, by definition. My point of that was, given the choice - and to govern is to choose, Ritmo - Colbert would choose the one, politics or ideology, over the other, art or integrity. And according to his choice we judge him.

If I have any latent beef against Colbert it is that I don't think he's very funny and that it is a hackneyed, labored act.

If he were "my SOB?" If I were convinced he was full of win it might gall me to cast him aside, but really how much can a body take?